recommended

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell) discovers the body of his best friend, Troy, and doesn't bother telling any of the parents in his postcard-perfect California neighborhood. He knows that these families prefer to go about their lives by ignoring reality entirely. But, when this scandal hits home, will they take notice, or will they continue along their merry, self-medicated way?" asks to the DVD sleeve description.A very large cast of disaffected and alienated individuals populate pretty suburban "Hillside". Most of them pop pills. "The Chumscrubber" video game has about as much to do with the storyline as The Blue Dolphins in Ralph Fiennes' mind. The film gets weird too late, and too little. Its soundtrack music is good, though - and, director Arie Posin manages the very capable and engaging cast well.****** The Chumscrubber (1/25/05) Arie Posin ~ Jamie Bell, Camilla Belle, Glenn Close, Justin Chatwin

I had the opportunity to see this film before it was released at a special screening. It was a benefit from my film course at college. Anyways none of knew what to expect, so we all went in completely blind to the what it was about. Afterwards one of the people from the studio interviewed us. I'll tell you what i told him: it was very thought provoking, had a very good cast, and was directed well. The story was great. It was very "Donnie Darko-Esquire" Since i saw it me and my girlfriend have watched it, everyone i play it for loves it. Great film! Most people love the story. There are however some un-answered questions much like the latter fllm mentioned. But again it is very thought provoking!

This film has many positive points and many negative points. The two ultimately end up canceling each other and at the end of the film I personally ended up with nothing. The cast is simply brilliant and each and every identifiable character is well-developed and performed extremely well by an unbelievably long series of excellent actors. Being a first venture for the writer/director this shows how many people believed in the project and were ready to commit to it. Sadly what now follows is the negative part of my review. The direction, albeit very good, is also laden with numerous clichés, which after a while start being the only noticeable features of the film. While viewing the film I was slowly removed from the story and started to see all the other films it reminded me of, and sadly it was not a short list*. This fact disconnected me from it eventually and I couldn't appreciate it anymore. This fact, coupled with the fact that the writer/director claims he is shining a spotlight on a subject that is muted was irritating actually, because it was blatantly false, because even though the closest to life in American suburbia I ever was, was a month long trip in 1998, I still got the same message from this film as I got from a number of films before it. One other thing that left me a bit perplexed was some characters' behaviour. I don't mean the offbeat or eccentric behaviours of some of the characters. Those were plausible and perfectly at home with the plot of the film. What I mean is the illogical behaviour of some characters, mainly the teenagers, starting from an academically bright "good lad" (even though fleeing from over-protective and ambitious parents), and a girl who at first glance seems to be good natured, passively agreeing to the whims of an antisocial thug to the point of kidnap and threat of murder, with the latter tolerating obvious flirtation with her own mother, while the former, suddenly blows into a desperate murderous rage, and accepts the fact that the person who initially proposed the murder would not have any part in it. The fact that people who seem to dislike each other have repeated conversations on the telephone in the evening, and finally the issue about drugs: I might have missed a crucial metaphor here, but throughout the film one sees drugs of some kind being distributed to virtually everyone in school, and people pop them here and there and get an instant relief, almost as fast as an injection. The main character ingests psychiatric medication almost by the handful on an "as required" basis (akin to using an asthma inhaler) with virtually no effect apart from satisfying his father, and finally when an incredible amount of a variety of drugs is put in a casserole by a child relatively silent and yet intent on sabotage to the rest of his family beyond belief. This results in a number of supposedly drug-naive individuals at a wake, ingesting an amount of crushed pills meant to supply a whole high-school at once, and only end up laughing and being promiscuous with no further consequence. I found that to be disturbing. Well to end this rather long comment, I think this writer director has potential and certainly commands respect from people who count. I hope this film (somewhat undeservedly) gets him enough success to enable him to make further movies which he himself can relate more to, in order to have more heart and truly be an original work free from the weight of previous films dictating its impact.* I'd recommend to watch the missing child sequence from "The Phantom of Liberty" by Luis Bunuel for example.

I'm sure this film was trying to make some commentary on middle-class suburbia, all is not what it seems or what-not. Any profound statements this film makes certainly went over my head. I think that's because there weren't any.The film follows the life of Dean, a high school boy whose best friend, Troy recently committed suicide. The suicide victim was a drug dealer, and a school bully, Billy (Justin Chatwin) along with his friend Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci) and girlfriend Crystal (Camilla Belle)mistakenly kidnap a boy they thought was Dean's brother as collateral so that Dean would would bring Troy's drugs to Billy. It also follows the lives of some of the other couples in this seemingly normal community.This is an all-star cast - Glenn Close, Ralph Feinnes, Rita Wilson, Jon Heard to name a few. Perhaps they mistakenly thought that this film had a purpose. Most of the characters in this film are absolutely absurd stereotypes, with Ralph Feinnes character just ridiculous. I did find the kidnapping plot interesting though. I wish the film had focused entirely on this. This was perhaps the only poignant social commentary in the film, the dangers of peer pressure and parental ignorance. The character of Billy was actually quite fascinating as the psychopath on the verge of doing something terrible. None of the other characters were likable or interesting. And none of them were 'real'.Basically, the film was just plain weird, which was enough to keep you watching. But much of it was just being weird for the sake of it, trying to make some obscure point. But really this film explores nothing that hasn't been explored before. One reviewer put it perfectly when he said this film was "Desperate Housewives meets Donnie Darko." Of course the writing was the on the wall because I hate both of those. I'm still in the dark as to what the hell a "Chumscrubber" is. Yet another attempt by this film to be profound. I wouldn't say this film is a loss completely. As I've said the kidnapping plot line was interesting. The rest is garbage.